Taste in High Life

Hogarth's Taste in High Life of 1742 satirizes the French fashion obsession of the English aristocracy — the extravagant powdered wigs, the absurdly small cups, the ridiculous costume details imported from Paris — that Hogarth regarded as both aesthetically contemptible and morally corrupting. The painting was a private commission and circulated only as a print, its satire too sharp for the public exhibition context. Hogarth's critique of Frenchified taste was inseparable from his advocacy for a distinctly British school of painting that would celebrate English subject matter in an English style.

Hogarth renders the fashionable interior with sharp satirical detail, exaggerating the absurdity of costume and manners. The precise rendering of each ridiculous object and gesture demonstrates his mastery of visual satire.